But my family’s small plots of wheat and potatoes don’t provide enough food to last through the year for our family of seven ( my mother, three brothers and two sisters ).

Abdulhai 7 years ago, reaping wheat.

We grind our wheat into flour at the water mill, for my mum to make about 4 to 5 months’ worth of nAAn. This year, my oldest brother Khamad had sold some of our potatoes for the usual mere fifteen U.S. cents per kilogram ( about seven U.S. cents per pound ). Some of us call potatoes the ‘apples of the land’, but why do we pay corrupt officials more than the farmers…?

I was maybe five, and we were all fleeing ( most of us with tattered shoes or sandals ) across the cold, snowy mountains away from the fighting and killing. We were frightened and tired, and hungry. I thought we were going to die.

When my uncle had found some nAAn, my mother asked for a little of it, and I know she wasn’t asking for herself. She was thinking of us.

My uncle didn’t share the nAAn.

I felt very bad for my mother. I don’t want my mother to feel so desperate again.

‘nAAn’ is not our only basic need. Love is also a basic need. People need to know that there are others who care about their survival.

From Samia

We need food, water, clothes and shoes, and a safe place to live.

My family left our home province of Laghman to come to Kabul 5 years ago. There was fighting going on. And my father and mother thought they could take better care of the family in Kabul.

My mother’s main worry is whether we will be safe and have enough food. We spend an hour daily to get drinking water from a hand-pump operated well near our rented room. Yes, sometimes, we do get diarrhea.

When we don’t have enough food, we know that we’ll just have to eat less, and make do.

If others don’t have enough? We ought to help them if we can.

From Hakim

In today’s world, 18,000 people die from hunger every day, which means death by emaciation every 5 seconds.

Have we become incapable of imagining how the next dying child would feel?

Unconsciously looking out for the food needs of Abdulhai’s family became such a subliminal stress that it threw me off once in being unfairly harsh on my impoverished friend, Khamad, Abdulhai’s oldest brother.

Khamad with a typical all carbohydrate Bamiyan meal of rice, bread and potatoes

Abdulhai’s family was short of basic necessities. Khamad, who became the young bread-winner of the family after his father was killed, had used some extra cash earned from his own vegetable plot to buy himself a coat for the harsh winter ahead. I felt angry and asked Khamad unthinkingly, ‘Why did you buy a coat when your family needs cash for food?’ Khamad had stared into the distance blankly, his eyes wet with confusion.

I shouldn’t have asked. I should have realized that keeping warm is also a necessity, and that Khamad hardly ever spends on himself anyway.

The inequalities of our ‘modern’ world began to shake me, that we buy, buy, buy and eat, eat and eat while, with hardly a sound, many fellow human beings have a hard time.

I appreciate my parents’ words over the dinner table when I was young, “Please finish the rice on your plate; there are those who would die for the last grain.” Yes, mom and dad, living life to the full also means no longer being content with food ONLY for ourselves. There should be minimum amounts of food for all, just like minimum wages. “People need to know that there are others who care about their survival.”

Last week, while nine of us peace volunteers were packed in a Kabul taxi, we had a conversation about how some Afghans will resort to violent politics and crime just to have money for food in their homes.

Dear friends,
How can I help? Is there not a way for those of us who love the peace volunteers and have become their friends to send money? I know there is much corruption, but perhaps through the next peace delegation? Please tell me how. Here in New York, having lost power for a week because of a hurricane, we still had plenty of food but many people (including myself at times) became disoriented and frightened. All the while, I thought of you, my friends, and others who live with the devastation of war. Whenever I could, I tried to interject that thought: What must it be like for the people of Afghanistan? I hope it caused people here to think more about you.

Beautiful brothers and sisters, I feel sad to see the ongoing suffering of people in your country, that in the world we haven’t figured out yet how to feed each other. I thankyou for your courage and bravery in speaking out about what is happening to you and for saying no to war. I don’t know how to help you, I hope that the world-wide movements for peace and freedom continue to grow, despite the terrible oppression we face from those who wish to hang on to power and money. Peace my friends. Peace Hakim, I met you in Melbourne when you were here last year, I spoke with Abdulhai and many others on skype. My love to you all. Laura

Many nights ago, I couldn’t sleep because I felt hungry. I examined my choice of food in my fridge and shamefully, my concern was how many calories of damage my choice would do to me. I also thought about those who were living in hunger and how difficult it must be to be constantly feeling hungry and weak. I knew I was living in a very fortunate part of the world. Now, reading your love letter, I would like to transform my thoughts & emotions into action. I would like to share my food with Afghan families. Please tell me how I can do so. I know that in your introductory letter you said that the love letters were not intended to solicit funds. But if they be love letters, then let the letters allow us to convey our love when we decide to demonstrate love in tangible ways.

My heart cries out for those in hunger. All food is precious and each human being should be assured of never going hungry. We must share food in solidarity. For this reason in the United States where although people do not usually die from starvation as they do in other countries, we have many people suffering each day from hunger with no food and no money to buy food. I seek compassionate people to help pass laws mandating that the over 100 billion pounds of edible food thrown away into dumpsters each day from food establishment be put into hungry mouths instead. Mitro/McHenry Mandatory Food Rescue Donation Law
Let us all stand in solidarity to feed the world, let us break boundaries and see ourselves as citizens of the world, a world with no war and no hunger. Let us be friends who have each others backs.